The Member of Parliament for Ashaiman Constituency, Henry Ernest Norgbey, has taken the Electoral Commission to the cleaners over what he described as dishonest conduct of the Commission in the ongoing exhibition exercise.
According to the legislator, instead of the EC admitting that it wrongfully deleted his names and other 21,000 people from the voter roll and only restored some after he raised alarm, the Commission rather said nothing close to that happened.
He said the EC lied when it issued a statement saying he peddled untruth that he visited his registration Centre and could not find his name in the register.
“As the member of parliament representing the people of Ashaiman, I wish to expose the lies and inconsistencies in the press statement released by the Electoral Commission (EC) yesterday, 19th September regarding the deletion of my name and that of 21,000 other registrants from the voters register in Ashaiman. The EC in that statement sought to discredit my person and downplay the severity of the exclusion of legitimate registrants from the voters’ register.” – He said
Explaining how he noticed his name was not in the register, he said:
“In the morning of Friday, 18 September, I went to the Celestial SHS 1 voter exhibition center of Center code C260703 to verify my name. My name was not found on the register which occasioned the verification officer to fill out my details on the EC’s own voter inclusion form. I have pictorial evidence of this and has accordingly attached the same to this release. Interestingly, I realised that at this same center, where we registered about 873 voters during the last voter registration exercise, the exhibition register only contained 257 registrants. I was alarmed by this so I quickly deployed my research officers to conduct an audit of all the registers exhibited at all the exhibition centers across the constituency.”
He continued that “To my utmost shock, out of 167,286 people registered, we only found about 146,000 names in the registers exhibited. Over 21,000 names were missing from the registers. I immediately began mounting pressure on the EC to do the needful by restoring every one of the 21,000 voters who have been expunged from the register.”
“On Saturday, after the people of Ashaiman had messed up at the offices of the EC and before I could address the press in my office, the EC released a new set of registers and claimed to have restored 14,000 names back onto the register including mine. Immediately, they (The EC) released a statement together with a screenshot of my voter information in their newly updated register creating the impression that I lied about my exclusion and 21,000 others from the register. This behaviour by the EC is unfortunate and smacks of gross dishonesty. Even beyond the 14,000 names that the EC claims to have restored, there’s still a remainder of 7,000 legitimate registrants yet to be restored onto the electoral roll for which reason I throw caution to the EC that my constituents and I shall not rest on our oars until the last of the remaining 7,000 affect registrants is put back onto the register.”
Read below the full statement by the MP…
PRESS RELEASE
INCONSISTENCIES AND GROSS DISHONESTY IN THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION’S PUBLIC ENGAGEMENTS WITH REGARDS TO THE DELETION OF 21,000 PERSONS FROM THE VOTERS REGISTER IN ASHAIMAN.
As the member of parliament representing the people of Ashaiman, I wish to expose the lies and inconsistencies in the press statement released by the Electoral Commission (EC) yesterday, 19th September regarding the deletion of my name and that of 21,000 other registrants from the voters register in Ashaiman. The EC in that statement sought to discredit my person and downplay the severity of the exclusion of legitimate registrants from the voters register.
In the morning of Friday, 18 September, I went to the Celestial SHS 1 voter exhibition center of Center code C260703 to verify my name. My name was not found on the register which occasioned the verification officer to fill out my details on the EC’s own voter inclusion form. I have pictorial evidence of this and has accordingly attached same to this release. Interestingly, I realised that at this same center, where we registered about 873 voters during the last voter registration exercise, the exhibition register only contained 257 registrants. I was alarmed by this so I quickly deployed my research officers to conduct an audit of all the registers exhibited at all the exhibition centers across the constituency.
To my utmost shock, out of 167,286 people registered, we only found about 146,000 names in the registers exhibited. Over 21,000 names were missing from the registers. I immediately began mounting pressure on the EC to do the needful by restoring every one of the 21,000 voters who have been expunged from the register.
On Saturday, after the people of Ashaiman had massed up at the offices of the EC and before I could address the press in my office, the EC released a new set of registers and claimed to have restored 14,000 names back onto the register including mine. Immediately, they (The EC) released a statement together with a screenshot of my voter information in their newly updated register creating the impression that I lied about my exclusion and 21,000 others from the register. This behavior by the EC is unfortunate and smacks of gross dishonesty. Even beyond the 14,000 names that the EC claims to have restored, there’s still a remainder of 7,000 legitimate registrants yet to be restored onto the electoral roll for which reason I throw a caution to the EC that my constituents and I shall not rest on our oars until the last of the remaining 7,000 affect registrants is put back onto the register.
It is therefore astonishing that instead of explaining to the good people of Ashaiman and the nation at large how data on over 21,000 people could go missing on a voters register in one constituency alone, The Electoral Commission has chosen to rather resort to the media to peddle falsehood.
If the Electoral Commission has any shred of credibility left, it would apologize to the good people of Ashaiman and Ghanaians whose names were wrongfully removed and actually take steps to restore them back onto the register in order not to disenfranchise them.
Signed……….
Ernest Henry Norgbey (MP)
Ashaiman Constituency
By: Mina Ekua Hayford / awakenewsroom.com
